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Sometimes you get a nice surprise when growing vegetables from your own collected seed. One of them is when a seedling displays an interesting new characteristic like colour or shape. In this case a batch […]

I recently visited Fremantle in Western Australia (early February 2016) and while there took some time out to walk round to see what was happening with the community gardens in the immediate area. I walked to […]

A fresh ripe Pepino – Solanum muricatum – tastes pretty good by itself but even better when combined in various ways with other items like Fresh Pineapple and mint. The flavour can change quite a bit […]

The beauty of random pollination. This round Zucchini is a cross between the classic Costata Romanesco Zucchini and a primordial white squash Zucchini cross I had come up as a sport a few years ago. I have been […]

What I’ve been mainly harvesting or what has been ready for harvest for the last month of November. This period is traditionally the spring transition period and the end of the ‘lean’ period in September and […]

What I’ve been mainly harvesting or what has been ready for harvest for the last month of October. October is usually yet another tricky month as it is highly variable each year like September. 2015 we had […]

What I’ve been mainly harvesting or what has been ready for harvest for the last month of September. September at the beginning of spring is usually another tricky month as it is highly variable each year. 2015 […]

Prostanthera incisa is a traditional native Australian bush food which is sometimes called the ‘cut leaf mint bush’ due to it’s incised leaf edges. It has an almost severe intensity of flavour with a fairly strong […]

OK – so why grow something that tastes like Kerosene? Epazote – Dysphania ambrosioides (syn Chenopodium ambrosioides) – is a fast growing very hardy plant (weed?) that produces seed like a blizzard and is a short […]

Blood Orange is generally a very productive citrus. It usually has quite dense foliage and makes for an attractive small fairly cold hardy tree. They grow steadily and you can see quickly if they need extra food […]

Turmeric – Curcuma longa – is so much better if it’s fresh. This perennial ginger like rhizome has a light crunchy texture and mild zingy flavour somewhat like a ginger infused carrot. It has a nice long lingering […]

So there are lots of tasty varieties of Kale out there. They all have different structure, physical ‘mouth feel’, smell and taste at various stages of growth. Generally the smaller the leaf the softer and […]

Who knows where this originated… but this group of Kales ( Brassicas – various species ) has come to be identified very clearly with the Portuguese cuisine and especially the classic soup made with it. The […]

Salad Burnett or Sanguisorba minor is a smallish perennial seasonal herb that tastes a bit like a slightly astringent parsley with a cucumber and mint overtone. In my climate it tends to favour the cooler wetter […]

This is a really good ‘eat the weeds’ plant!. Rumex acetosella is a perennial plant commonly known as ‘sheep’s sorrel’ and is a very small ground hugging green leafy herb that grows from a fine rhizome. […]

Note – It seems in Australia there is a bit of confusion about the identity of the plant known commonly here as ‘Lebanese cress’. Berula erecta is an Australian native water plant (it also occurs elsewhere […]

Silene vulgaris is a small european & mediterranean perennial leafy plant that has leaves that taste like a subtle cross between spinach and cucumber with a slight bitter twist that disappears with blanching or cooking. It is […]

Valerianella locusta is often called ‘Corn Salad’ or ‘lambs lettuce’. Originating as a forage food it eventually became an accepted and even desired cool growing leafy green food. It usually has a fairly simple slightly […]

Komatsuna (Brassica rapa var. perviridis) is a classic Japanese brassica green. It is a medium sized plant shaped like a typical open cabbage family plant. The white or green leaf stems grow to about 40cm high and the […]

Alexanders is a biennial mediterranean winter herb or vegetable that has a distinct celery like flavour. It is an interesting replacement for the often very bland and one layered taste of mass produced celery that was […]

Perilla or Shiso has a very distinct and some would say pungent flavour and scent. It is commonly often also called ‘BeefSteak’ plant after (I assume) it’s somewhat ‘meaty’ taste and texture. The species is […]

The Cardoon is a cultivar of the same perennial plant species as Artichoke – Cynara cardunculus. They grow much the same way and in the same conditions however the point of growing the cardoon is to […]